Nikki Haley calls for removal of Confederate flag

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is set to join those calling on state lawmakers to remove the Confederate flag from a war memorial on the state Capitol grounds.

Last week’s mass shooting in Charleston, S.C. — where nine black people were killed inside the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church by a white gunman in what investigators are treating as a hate crime — has reignited a debate over the Confederate flag, which flies atop a 30-foot flagpole outside the state Capitol building in Columbia.

South Carolina was the last state to fly the Confederate flag above its statehouse. In 2000, lawmakers agreed to move it from the statehouse dome to a Confederate war memorial on the statehouse grounds.

Following last week’s shootings, Haley ordered the state flags to be flown at half-staff following the church massacre. But the Confederate flag, which was built at the memorial site to remain in a fixed position, remained flying high.

“In South Carolina, the governor does not have legal authority to alter the flag,” a Haley spokesman explained to ABC News. “Only the General Assembly can do that.”

Republican state Rep. Doug Brannon told Reuters Monday that he has drafted legislation ordering the flag’s removal from the statehouse grounds.